


I Yield

by enzhe



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Original Trilogy, The Mandalorian (TV)
Genre: Din is doing his best, Grogu will get his way (and his dad) eventually, ManDadlorian, Multi
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-01-23
Updated: 2021-02-11
Packaged: 2021-03-14 19:27:01
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 6,665
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28925781
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/enzhe/pseuds/enzhe
Summary: Din Djarin doesn't want to be king. But he doesn't let useful weapons go unwielded, either.
Comments: 132
Kudos: 289





	1. Mand'alor the Uninvited

**Author's Note:**

> *hides from unfinished fics in former fandoms* 
> 
> Season 2 killed me. Now I haunt my keyboard, typing out ficlets. They might grow. This is...a way.
> 
> Ratings and relationships may change. DinLuke is likely.

It’s not as hard as it should be to square up and step into view. Breathe in, breathe out, and the New Republic squaddies manning the Senate security gate have eyes on him—and are already comming for backup. It’s a little bit funny.

He is a threat, but there’s no scenario where he attacks the Senate Convention and wins. Or gets out alive. Which is why it’s stupid to be here, no matter how determined he is to avoid conflict.

Din Djarin stopped doing what was smart many months ago. Can’t seem to claw his way back up to making sane decisions no matter how high his survival instincts screech. This plan? This fool’s folly he’s already two confident steps too committed to? It’s nothing. Nothing at all compared to what he’s willing to do. What he’s done.

Still, it’s stupid.

“I, uh, I come in peace,” he says, palms out and open. Five blasters aimed at him. A sixth goon went running for help. Like they think he’s compromised their comms or something. “I’m unarmed. Well—the spear is—it’s ceremonial.”

Boots pound pavement on the other side of the gates. Backup squad arriving. Not bad response time, really. He’s close to impressed.

“State your business,” calls a squaddy—the one with the steadiest hands. The one who spotted him first. Good. Din can talk to this one.

“I want to attend the convention,” he says. Slow and clear.

“The…Senate Convention?”

“…Are there other conventions behind those gates? Yes, the Senate Convention.”

Two full platoons of New Republic Solders fill in behind the gate guards. No cannons, yet, so this is going pretty well. No one’s even shot him.

“It’s not open to the public,” says the sharp one. “Galactic leaders only. By invitation only.”

“Yeah, I can’t do the invitation part,” Din starts—and stops on a sigh, two platoons _and_ a cannon aiming at him now—well, not entirely at him, because Paz Vizsla thunders down, shaking the ground he lands on.

Din switches to internal comms, staring tiredly into the mouth of a riot cannon. “I told you to stay out of sight.”

“I told you not to go alone,” Paz snaps back, and any cred Din had built up with that awful _I come in peace_ line is very much shot to the ninth Corellian hell.

Looks like the Senate building is half a threat-code from going into full lockdown. A Captain of one of the backup squads steps to the fore, places himself protectively in front of the squaddy who’d started as spokesperson. “I know better than to underestimate even one Mandalorian warrior,” he says evenly; his respect is as bitterly cold as the look in his eyes, but it’s enough to make Paz lower his flamethrower a finger’s width. “I will warn you: no matter how many emerge from the shadows, you are outnumbered. Our fleet is in orbit and on high alert. My orders are to maintain the civility that makes the Senate Convention possible. It is not wise to come between me and the fulfillment of my duty.”

The squaddy who first hailed Din looks about as done with her commander’s zealotry as Din is.

Paz, unfortunately, is only encouraged by it. “Do your worst,” he says. “I survived the Empire, I’ll survive you. Get your blasters _off_ my king.”

Well. That gets a reaction.

“…King?” repeats the Commander, free hand twitching towards his comm unit.

“Like I said,” Din says wearily. “I’m just here to attend the Convention. Wasn’t the New Republic trying to establish ties with the remnants of Mandalore? I heard something about that. Thought it might count as, uh, kind of an invitation.”

On the internal comms, Paz hisses: “ _You don’t sound like a king. I know you can—_ ”

 _“Shut up and serve the strategy,”_ Din hisses back.

The truth is, Din has negative interest in being King.

“You are the…Mand’alor?”

Bracing against the way the very breath in his lungs and the blood in his veins flow away from it, Din lifts the Darksaber. Ignites its eager hunger.

“That’s me,” he says.

Recoil ripples through the soldiers braced against them: shock, fear, uncertainty. Awe.

“Stand down,” orders Spokesperson Squaddy quietly, leading by example. Her Commander doesn’t reprimand her. Or contradict her. Weapons lower, though none are holstered.

“…Wait here,” says the Commander. He stares a heartbeat longer, then turns to hurry through his ranks, whispering urgently into his comm.

Din puts the Darksaber away. He hoped to ease the tension. Doesn’t seem to be working.

At least Paz is enjoying himself. The shifts are subtle, but he’s clearly angling to get Chandrila’s subdued sunlight blazing off his armor and blaster canon as dramatically as possible.

Din half expects this to end with some Senate Intelligence official calling their bluff. Their little two-man stand at the Senate gates represents a full third of Mandalore’s military, as far as Din knows. Paz has been aggressively silent on how he found Din, on what happened to him between that meeting and their last—no one else has joined them, and Paz doesn’t seem to expect anyone to. The rest—Bo Katan and her squad—they’re more likely to turn on Din than to fight for him.

It’s fine. He’s not a king. Will never be king. Not even a king of one, though his attempts to shake Paz are about as successful as his old efforts to keep the kid from eating things he shouldn’t eat.

Even on that most basic of levels, Din couldn’t keep the kid safe. He couldn’t keep his ship intact. Couldn’t even lose a battle he needed to lose.

And so he’s King.

He doesn’t catch the signal, but whatever it is: the Senate soldiers part ranks. Stand at perfect attention.

A woman marches down that aisle: short, sharp, elegant. _A_ _uthority,_ Din thinks. He stands very still. Very straight.

It’s luck or an illusion, but her eyes meet his as if there’s no vizor to shield them. The back of his neck prickles.

“Mand’alor, it’s an honor,” she says, and _authority_ rings through Din’s head again. “Thank you for your calm and your patience. We are so pleased to welcome you to the Senate Convention.”

She waves a welcoming hand; all around her, soldiers holster their weapons.

For all that it is already far, far too late to turn back, Din finds it difficult to step forward.

Step forward he does. Paz shadows him, making up for his own misgivings by going full-throttle on hulking intimidation.

Their hostess is not affected in the least. “My name is Leia Organa,” she says. “General and Ambassador, and, for the moment, your guide.”

“Leia…Organa?” Din repeats slowly.

He can’t be this lucky. Can he?

“That’s right,” she says, smiling with perfect charm, and neither extends her hand to touch nor asks his name—whatever her game, she knows at least some of the rules Mandalorians play by, and that makes her less terrible, and more dangerous.

But this is Din’s game, and Organa is the being he came here for. For the chance at a moment of conversation—the possibility of a lead, a tip, a hint—

he just needs to find his kid.

And now, finally, he’s a one step closer to doing just that. All it took was claiming King.


	2. Mand'alor the Honest

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Leia and Din make a deal.

“You’re not here for the Convention,” Leia Organa says, ending a pause and a stare so intense that Din had seriously started wondering if she’d brought him into this small, soundproofed, and heavily guarded private meeting room just to murder him. “You’re also quite determined to avoid a fight. So. Why _are_ you here?”

Din focuses on his gratitude for Paz’s sullen agreement to guard the room from the _outside,_ and tries not to do what Paz would be doing if he was here: shooting this woman for knowing too much.

He has a feeling that Leia Organa would prove very difficult to kill, even if he did let hard-earned experience guide his hand. Din goes with an opposite instinct. He tells the truth.

“You’ve been known to fight with the Jedi,” he says carefully. “Skywalker.”

Organa’s expression remains as impenetrable as his own beskar, but something in Din’s gut curls tight with familiar cold. One unlucky step in the dark, and the hunter becomes the hunted.

“I want to talk to him,” Din says.

“So does everyone,” Leia Organa says. “Quite the hero. What are his bounties running of late? I’ve been too busy to check. Is he still every hunter’s rich-quick dream?”

“Nightmare, more like,” Din grumbles. “I’ve seen him fight. The hunters dumb enough to take that puck will pose no more trouble than a stingtic on banthahide.”

Is he imagining that his lungs are freely expanding again? Did he say the right thing?

“Hmm,” says Organa.

“He has my kid,” says Din.

“He—what?”

“He has my kid. I just want to—I just need to know. That he’s okay. The kid. He can be difficult, he’s always getting into things he shouldn’t and he’s stubborn and—takes a lot of patience, dealing with him, but he’s—it’s just because he’s little—and—and smart—”

“Wait. Man—Honored Mand’alor—”

Din drops his hands, goes still. He didn’t mean to spew all of that anyway, he really just—shit. When it comes to the kid, he just can’t keep it together. He thought it would get easier with time, but it’s—it’s getting worse.

He can’t do this.

“Please,” he says. He came here as a king because it was a tool he could use, and he didn’t have a better one. Din Djarin is no king. He will beg if he needs to.

“Okay,” says Organa. “Okay, I—I believe you. I’ll help you. I just— _what is Luke doing with your kid?_ He…stole it? A child? Why?”

Her disbelief actually makes Din feel better, even as it shifts into a judging eyebrow pointed at him. Losing a child is a sin most worthy of being judged. “I gave my child to him. To Skywalker. The child was a foundling under my protection. Skywalker was…better suited. To protect.” The mangled, sparking Dark Trooper carcasses Skywalker left in his wake are part of Din’s droid nightmares, now. A full platoon, halved, scattered, _crushed,_ and Din nearly died defeating _one._

Organa leans back, watching him. Din is very small under that stare. He straightens his spine, unwilling to be more vulnerable than his confessions have made him.

“Thank you for your honesty, Mand’alor,” she says. “Of course I will help you. If all you need is to speak with Skywalker, that is simple enough to arrange.”

Din’s trying not to go giddy with relief. There's always a catch.

“A conversation is promised,” she says, smiling that lovely, dangerous smile, dark eyes sweet and subtle. “And I offer an even better deal, if you’ll take it; I can take you to Skywalker myself. See for yourself how your foundling is faring. Not tonight, but two days from now—yes, that should be doable.”

“The price?” Din asks. Glove leather creaks; he forces his fists open.

“Only what you have already offered,” Organa says. “Attend the Senate Convention. Stand forth as Mand’alor. I want what you want. We are natural allies.”

“You don’t know what I want,” Din says. “Apart from checking on my kid—”

“You want what every parent wants,” Organa says, voice soft, eyes—even her eyes show a gentleness he could not have imagined there, just heartbeats prior. From the moment he looked at her, he recognized a warrior. “A better future. The galaxy we wish for our children—as close we can get it, anyway.”

Din doesn’t speak. He has nothing to give here, not really. Nothing to force her hand should she renege on her promise. If he stands before the senate as Mand’alor, he will be akin to an actor in costume, representing a myth, not a kingdom—

“Two days,” he says.

“I bet your kid will be thrilled to see you,” she says.


	3. Mand'alor the Apathetic

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Din vs. the Senate.

Din hates the Senate.

“This is stupid,” Paz says. Not for the first or even the ninth time. “These people are clowns.”

He’s not wrong. It makes Din feel marginally better about playing king. _New_ is the honest bit of the New Republic’s title; new like a hatchling trying to get too many legs under it so it can take its first steps. Except this is less like something innocent and more like a droid built of a battlefield’s scrap and reanimated as a crime against the universe. 

At least it’s easy. Din has had to use only one strategy so far, and it’s one of his favorites. Whenever he’s addressed, he just points his helmet in the appropriate direction, and lets legend and fear complete whatever his target imagines of his intent and expression. He hasn’t spoken, and that seems to be going quite well for him, actually. Paz is very good at this game, too. They have a rhythm going: some high-and-mighty someone-or-other talks at Din, Din slowly turns his visor their way, they stutter. Stop. Start over, bleeding confidence by the syllable. Behind him, Paz turns—Din knows exactly how it feels to be on the other end of this, to look up and up and _up_ and try to tell your brain that there is no way this armored hulk is _expanding_ , inching higher like a volcano about to obliterate everything—aannnnd done. Catastrophic conversation avoided.

Turns out schadenfreude is still on the short list of Din’s favored feelings.

The speeches aren’t any better. Din sleeps through a couple of those. The chairs in their private pod are comfortable, and Paz is watching his back. He’ll make up for it by taking double watch at night. Let Paz catch up on his own rest.

The debates are…interesting, confusing, and incredibly annoying. Everything is spoken in Basic or translated into Basic, but this is not a language Din knows. This is a dance of words with the tension of gunbattle behind them, and Din can’t follow it. He watches Organa instead, watches who her aids take messages to, watches anyone else who watches her. He’s got a pretty good idea of where her alliances fall, by the end of Day 1. Good to know, since she presumes Din to be among them.

“Why do they keep _talking,_ ” Paz moans on Day 2, abusing both Din and their internal comm system to join the annoying talkers. “Don’t agree? Fight it out. ‘S the only thing that _works._ Millenia of history, and they’re doing this like—”

“I’m sleeping,” Din interrupts. “Shhhh.”

“The Apathetic,” Paz says. “That’s your title now. Mand’alor the Apathetic.”

“You really shouldn’t follow me.”

Paz shuts up.

They have a committee in charge of…committees.

Din and Paz share a look. This is some kind of set-up. Right? They didn’t just hand the floor of the New Republic Senate over to the Chair of the Committee on Selecting Committees?

“All attend the Chair of the Committee on the Selecting of Committees,” intones the Senate Chief.

Wow.

Din’s trigger finger itches. “I want to set something on fire,” Paz hisses into the comms. “…a lot of things. I want to set a lot of things on fire.”

“Don’t think much in here is flammable,” Din whispers back. “Conductive, though—how far would the shock travel if we zapped the railings? Look at all the Senators leaning on those things. We’d hit, like, sixteen in one go—”

“Seventeen,” Paz says, . “Crank the voltage up, and—”

Organa glances up at them, lips pursed like—like she’s trying not to grin. There’s no way she can hear them. She can’t have sliced into their internal comms—Din taps his helmet, zooming in—she’s not wearing any type of earpiece, nothing on or near her head that could be a secret audio feed—unless the hair…?

Her smile breaks free. She shakes her head minutely, then goes back to looking perfectly regal and attentive.

Din suppresses a shudder. Half a day. Just a few standard hours more, and either she keeps up her end of the bargain, or he and Paz get to blow a _lot_ of steam.

Someone new has taken the floor. The person the Committee on Selecting Committees has nominated for…something. Ah. Ethical Labor Law something or other. They sure think highly of themselves, these Republic wastoids.

Too restless to trust himself with anything more appealing, Din tries to understand what the current Senate vote is about. The Committee on Committees made a new Committee. Okay. It’s stupid, but it checks. The new committee is about enforcing ethical labor laws, which is a nice dream but…whatever galaxy these folks think they live in, it’s not one Din has ever shared. The overdressed human giving a speech about his own wonderfulness is going to head up this committee, freeing Known Space from vile slavery, eradicating all forms of secrecy and corruption—apparently by shining pure starlight right out of his ass, as far as Din can tell.

He tries to imagine what it will be like when he sees his little womp rat again. Grogu. Will he come running, cling to Din’s boot and look up at him with adoration? Will he be angry that Din didn’t protect him? Let him get taken first by Gideon, then by a Jedi?

Will he remember him?

Is he happy?

Of course he’s happy. He’s with his own people, people who can do what he does, who can train him, protect him—

If he’s not happy, _what is Din going to do?_

No. Focus. These hypotheticals—that’s rookie stuff. Eyes front. 

Is this Ethical Labor fool really saying droids are the answer? Really. Slavery, feudalism, workplace casualties—the solution to everything is droids! Just like this sleemo has built his sector-dominating mining and fabrication empire on.

Good hunters notice patterns, and here’s one Din has never seen exception to: you don’t get to the tippy-top of any kind of empire, business or otherwise, by caring a whole lot about individual lives. Din wouldn’t have a job if deep pockets came with deep conscience. It’s all about capital, and the ugly reality of the galaxy is that sentients—most sentients, anyway—are expendable. Replaceable. Affordable.

Oh hey, the Committee on Committees honcho is back.

Senators are voting. Are all of the beings voting Senators? Does Din get to vote?

“Hey, Paz.”

“Oho, the King awakes.”

Din snaps his vambrace blade back in almost as fast as he instinctively slipped it out. Now is not the time for stabbing Paz. “Do I get to vote?”

Paz thinks this over for a minute. “Try it and find out?”

Good plan. Now, for timing—

“Honored beings of the Senate, your votes have been tallied—”

Din stands. Not many take notice.

Paz steps up to loom next to him. A few more take notice.

“—the final decision will shortly be announced—”

Organa is watching him, head tipped just so, eyes thoughtful.

“—thus concludes—”

In a single half-second movement, Din sweeps the spear from his back, strikes his left vambrace, and shifts to attention, enjoying the echoing ring of pure beskar.

Good. Now everyone has taken notice.

“I vote no,” he says, dry as the Tatooine dune sea.

Committee-of-Committees-clown blinks. Darts nervous glances. Clears more than one throat. “Ah, to the honorable representative of—of M-mandalore—please note the guidelines for New Republic Senatorial voting protocol as laid down in section four-point-eight, subheading three—”

Din tips his T-visor just so. “ _I vote no._ ”

Several voices rise—the Ethical Labor oligarch, loudest of all—but shut up fast as Organa stands. How someone so short manages to tower over every self-important ass in the room—which is close to a thousand—Din can only wonder. And admire.

“As Lead Ambassador of the New Republic, I can act as proxy for your vote as a visiting dignitary, if I so choose,” she says. “Do you have reasoning for your dissent, Mand’alor?”

Din acknowledges her with a nod. Turns to the Ethical Labor scuzzsucker. “You said you mine with droids,” he says.

“As I said, droids are the face and the future of a safe, ethical, and prosperous galactic economy, benefitting both—”

“You said you mine agrocite,” Din says.

“Agrocite is the leading product of my sector, and my unparalleled application of droid technology is the beacon by which—”

“So you’re mining agrocite. With droids.”

“Do you have to make _everything_ about droids?” Paz groans over internal comms. “Dank ferrik, Din, you _still—_ ”

The oligarch rolls his eyes, spreads his bejeweled hands, smirks wide. Quite a show. But Din can see the glisten of sweat beading around that high collar. “So _you_ have a few brain cells left, under all that armor,” the politican says, loud and lewd. “Pardon my rudeness, but you know what they say—communication is about matching the level of your target, no matter how painfully low, right? Yes, yes, you understood several of the main points of my speech, well done—”

“Say it,” Din says, one hand on Paz’s trigger-hand, holding his one-man army back. “Say: ‘I mine agrocite with droids. And turn a profit.’”

The proposed Ethical Labor leader, prince of some house or another, turns to Organa with desperation masquerading as scorn. “Ambassador Organa,” he begins, “on behalf of the honor of the New Republic, please inform your guest—”

Organa does the head-tilt again. She looks very, very sweet. Under his beskar, Din feels very, very smug. Ah, schadenfreude.

“No, this truly is remarkable,” she says. “And a little embarrassing that no one in the Senate realized how exceptional you truly are, Prince Beval. How _do_ you case your droids? With agrocite being so incredible corrosive to most metals, particularly durasteel, even transparisteel—”

“I bet you use kids,” Din says, the pleasure of the hunt and the trap already burned through, fueled now by a fury he’s not sure he can contain. “The narrower the drop holes, the more profitable the mines, isn’t that how it works? Oh, I’m sure you have your droids. Keep ‘em on the surface, working day and night, forcing younglings into the _literal pits of hell._ Beating the babies who come back up too soon, or with baskets too light—”

There’s a strange groaning sound. The ornamental railing of his Senatorial Guest box bows under his fist. Din flinches, releases, steps back.

“Head of Ethical Labor would be perfect for you,” he says softly. “Perfect for controlling every line of oversight and protection that could save even one of your _assets._ Paz.”

They’re leaving. Din turns his back on the Senate, grateful for how quickly Paz catches on, catches up, gets the door to their box open before Din blasts it down.

This is why Din doesn’t fight with words. He can never stop with _words._ Beval needs to be dead. A gruesome, public death, as warning and example to whatever slime wants to ooze out of the shadows to fill the power void left behind.

He destroys something on this way out. A few somethings. Nothing sentient. Hopefully nothing too expensive for a job or two to replace.

Stomping along beside him, Paz hums his favorite war song.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I totally made up that whole corrosive agrocite thing, just picked the name up from a wookiepedia list of stuff that gets mined in Star Wars and twisted it for the plot, sorry if that breaks something


	4. Mand'alor the Dramatic

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Leia has a message for Luke, and Din's not going to deliver it.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Y'all, the amazing response to this story has me astonished and a little bit terrified. I'll try to get back to all the comments--I seriously LOVE reading them, love geeking out with all you beautiful nerds. You are my people. I just really hope I can keep this story going and not disappoint. Thanks so much for reading.

“We call him Mand’alor the Dramatic,” Paz calls out, hand up in a casual salute to complete his greeting to General and Ambassador Leia Organa. He doesn’t bother rising from where he’s crouched comfortably over with his travel-sized cu’bikad set, though his enthralled audience of New Republic Gate Guards seem to be in a race to see who can snap up to attention the fastest. “There are a few other titles in the running, but I’m thinking that might be the one to stick. How much of a mess did we make?”

Din turns to glare as Paz’s salute turns into gesture that presents Din, whose cape may be billowing a bit in the wind as he stands spear-out in front of the Senate gates. Din doesn’t control the wind, and he wouldn’t be guarding the gates if the New Republic squaddies were _doing their damn jobs_ instead of learning to play cu’bikad with Paz.

Organa took her sweet time catching up with them. There’s visible strain cracking the corners of her perfect composure, and Din feels a little bad.

“It’s a mess,” Leia Organa says, smiling a little—Din didn’t expect that. “If you came seeking the faultlines of our nascent Senate, you found them. At least Beval is cooperating—he became much more reasonable when I offered him the choice of facing justice at your hands, rather than mine.”

“So long as he meets justice,” Din growls. Then, suddenly unsure, “I don’t care about the Senate.” The longer he looks at her, the stronger he feels the need to defend or apologize or— _what would a king do?_ He’s selling the myth of Mand’alor, here. Not well, he thinks. “I only care about my kid. Not just—my kid, also—kids. In general.”

“I know,” Organa says warmly, and her smile has only grown. “I told you: we’re natural allies. Now. The entire Senate is in uproar over your claims; every faction has people headed to Beval’s planets; several tips made it through to the media, too. I fear what Beval’s family may do in their attempts to destroy evidence. I can’t leave now. Things could get bloody.”

A low panic spoils Din’s gut. It always happens like this: Din makes a deal, he keeps his end, every other end spirals into more than he asked for. More heat. More damage. More time. “I didn’t claim anything.”

“I know,” Organa says again. “You used the word ‘bet’. You don’t strike me as a betting man, Mand’alor.”

“I’m not,” Din says, and matches her probing stare. “Some odds, I’ll take. Some fights have to be fought.”

For a moment, Organa just looks at him—as if his helmet isn’t there, its impenetrable visor dissolved between them—and then she nods. “Well. We both have places to be. Do you need a ship?”

“A—what?” He can’t have heard her right. She was going to tell him that Skywalker has to wait, that he needs to take responsibility for the fight he started in the Senate. That she’d changer her mind, and wouldn’t allow contact with the Jedi after all.

“A ship,” she says, clearly losing patience. “I can lend you one of mine, if you need it.”

The ship he and Paz arrived on was ‘borrowed’ from a drunken troop of Inner Core students on a pleasure cruise, at least one of whom was very proud of his family’s wealth and prominence. Might even have been related to Beval, now that Din thinks about it. “…Sure,” he says, unwilling to trust that this is real, that the deal is good, that Leia Organa is going to make it this easy to get to his kid. “I could use a ship.”

“Excellent. My personal cruiser has Luke’s coordinates pre-programmed, and its comms are already as secure as my team can make them. You can leave now. Head to hangar 3-7—someone here can direct you, yes, thank you, Private Lee—I’ll have one of my aids meet you with the necessary access and code cylinders. I won’t keep you any longer; I do hope we meet again soon, Mand’alor. It has been a pleasure and an honor.”

She nods—among Mandalorians, it could only be read as proud acknowledgment among equals—and steps back, like she’s opening the path for him, like she truly means all that she’s said. Paz falls in next to him, staring down at Organa with what Din is pretty sure is the same confusion Din feels.

“I—” Din starts, and stops, because he what? He’s received all he dared ask for, and more. It’s too good to be anything but a trap, but it doesn’t feel like one. The way Organa meets his eyes—“Thank you,” he settles on, bracing as he would for a blow, but she just nods again, outdoing every holovid of every Princess Din has ever happened to see. He might have gone through a phase.

“May the Force be with you,” she says, and then—there’s a shift, a cant to her chin that makes Din think of Grogu at his most disobedient—“Give Luke a kiss from me, would you? Tell him he owes me.”

 _Oh,_ Din thinks, staring at Leia Organa’s regally retreating back, _so it’s like that._

“Battle partners, huh,” Paz breathes into the comms, after they’ve both stood staring for struck-dumb seconds. It’s the reason they’re here—Leia Organa is a public figure, public enough to trace without attracting attention, and the stories are: she killed a Hutt. With a little help from a Jedi. The way Paz just said it, and _give Luke a kiss_ burning Din’s ears—Din’s just glad for the helmet, what with his whole head gone hot with embarrassment.

Battle partners, indeed.

What was that rule about Jedi and attachment?

*

Organa wasn’t kidding about sending them off in her own personal starship. It’s more practical than not—first thing Din notices is the custom-mounted canons—but he’s pretty sure the plating on the hull is all original, which would make this the soundest ship Din’s ever flown. That extra generator must power one hell of a shield. Or possibly a cloaking device.

The thrill of getting up close and personal with a really fine vehicle flips into sheer nerves once he and Paz are stomping around the inside. This is no pleasure yacht, but he’s going to be a lot more careful about what he touches in here than he was on his way out of the Senate, that’s for sure.

He opens what he thought was an extra cabin and sees a fresher so pretty that he’s suddenly desperate to make it all the way to wherever Skywalker is without needing to use it. Paz’s inventive stream of expletives is steadying, at least. 

Then there’s the purr of the engines as they come online.

“Someone shoot at us,” Paz prays, big hands reverent on the gunner’s controls. “Please, we’ve pissed off enough people, someone give me half an excuse—”

Din’s not gonna say it, but he’s every bit as eager to find out what this ship can do. Maybe, if they become—friends—Organa would let him take take the kid for a spin—

Snorting over his own delusions, Din flies _very responsibly_ through Chandrila’s atmosphere, waits for the computer to blink green for lightspeed, and makes the first jump.

Either this is some elaborate trap he’s not getting out of alive, or he’s a day and change from reuniting with his kid.

Some odds, Din thinks, are truly worth the risk.


	5. Mand'alor the Muddy

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> reunited <3

Din’s not the type to imagine a place before he’s seen it. Expectations of all types are dangerous—analyze, strategize, make plans and back-up plans, know that most plans crumple like burned flimsy in the face of reality—but don’t believe what your imagination cooks up. He didn’t mean to imagine anything at all about the lair of a Jedi, but it settled in his subconscious without permission and what Din is seeing: does not match.

The Jedi had made quite the impression, and when Din imagined Grogu’s training, the background that filled in tended to match what they’d seen on Gideon’s cruiser: dark, efficient, mysterious, hermetic. Guarded.

Not…this.

The fly-in was grand. Organa’s ship shuddered but kept course through the dense atmosphere of this uncharted moon. Seconds from breaking cloud cover saw them slaloming mountains that stood so tall and proud and thin that Din imagined a towering army of monks, robed in the rich jade of thriving, gravity-defying forest. They glimpsed gleaming waterfalls, and flew alongside flocks of flying creatures with wingspans that rivaled single-pilot fighter craft. Then _through_ a waterfall, Din and Paz braced for distaster but trusting Organa’s coordinates—surely she wouldn’t program a route that ended with this beautiful ship splatted into the wall of a cave.

There was no cave. Beyond the water-curtain opened a magnificent valley, and in this magnificent valley was: one hut. One small, poorly-built hut, surrounded by fields of mud, and in the fields of mud: one lone figure, back bent to work, head obscured by a huge, floppy hat.

Din circled round for a tight, low fly-over, but there was no one else. Something that may have been a spare hat, discarded by the well-camouflaged figure. If that one muddy being hadn’t been moving around—looking up and waving—Din might not have seen them at all. They were coated in the muck they stood in.

“It’s a trap,” Paz says, not sounding at all like he really thinks it’s a trap. “Has to be. Unless jetii magic spawns in mud? Where’s the kid?”

That last question is Din’s first question. He lands carefully—no, not accurate. He resists the urge to mess with the ship while _it_ lands for him, running an auto-setdown sequence as smooth as polished beskar.

They power everything down. Conduct checks of weapons and armor in near-perfect tandem. All blades and arms are, of course, in perfect order.

“Let’s go,” Din says, and leads the way down the ramp, trigger hand hovering.

They move forward cautiously, scanning for hidden lifeforms, any sign of sabotage—there’s nothing, just—a _lot_ of insects, many absurdly large, most iridescent in a way that suggests vivid, variated color, too much for his HUD to interpret. 

A hundred paces out of the designated landing spot, and they step over a little crest of land and into full view of the hut and the mud and the man covered in mud and—the spare hat, wobbling urgently towards them— _Grogu._

Din breaks into a run, his audio automatically tuning in to the warbling squeaks and squeals of joy he missed, he _missed this so much—_

The kid is in his arms. _Thank you,_ Din sends into the universe. _Thank you, thank you, thank you._

Some part of him is aware of the man—the Jedi, that really is the Jedi, and he really is absolutely _drenched_ in mud, and so is Grogu, and now so is most of the front of Din—coming up in front of him and Paz pacing forward to loom behind and Din’s knees sinking slowly into damp earth, but all he has eyes for is the kid. His kid.

He looks good. He _sounds_ good. He’s muddy but completely recovered from the tired, sunken wariness he’d worn on Gideon’s cruiser and too many other times in their harrowing journey. His eyes are big and bright and he’s babbling too fast for Din to parse where one syllable stops and another begins and his little clawed hands are streaking mud across Din’s visor as he scrabbles to reach and hold. Throat closed tight, desperate gratitude burning bright in his chest, stinging at the backs of his eyes—something hot and wet runs down Din’s cheek—Din boosts Grogu up higher, bows carefully, carefully forward, nestles their foreheads together.

For a second, Grogu goes quiet. He holds still and holds on, and as Din shuffles him down to sit in the crook of his elbow, and squelches up out of the mud and back on his feet, that little face stares up at him, _beaming._

“I promised,” Din says simply, and Grogu says something—not a word in any language Din knows—but absolutely satisfied and affirming.

“Mand’alor the Muddy,” Paz sighs, and the Jedi—Skywalker—has to quickly smother a smile.

“Sorry for the mess,” Skywalker says, open and easy, and the face, the build, the _eyes_ are undeniably those of the man Din claimed kingship to find, but there is nothing else in common with the wizard-warrior Grogu called to save them. It’s not just the mud. This man—if Din didn’t know better, he would look at this man and think: cute. Utterly harmless. “We were expecting you, but got caught up in a project—Grogu can’t wait to show you! He’s been working very hard on it.”

He smiles, and looks younger than ever, a hint of sunburn tinting cheekbones under carelessly smeared mud.

Must be a Jedi thing. Din can see how useful it could be—intimidation is a sound strategy, but so is being written off as the opposite.

Still, the nod Din offers is close to reverential. He thinks of a particular death trooper, crushed without being touched, and the months-familiar chill that echoes that memory curls up his spine.

“He looks well,” he says, canting his visor from the Jedi to Grogu—who tilts his head up to look at him, flashing that little grin again—Din’s heart skips a beat. Kriff, his kid is the cutest. He’s seen a fair amount of the galaxy. His opinion is expert. “Thank you, Jedi Skywalker.”

“You found my name,” Skywalker says, mouth twitching in that almost-smile again, like there’s some hidden joke behind his identity. “And my sister. Definitely living up to the little one’s stories! Come this way, let’s get out of the sun, get you both something to drink—may I be introduced?”

He steps closer as he speaks, turns those wide light eyes up towards Paz, not even a little bit intimidated.

“I protect the Mand’alor,” Paz says, which is apparently all the introducing he’s going to do. Fine by Din, who has a more pressing confusion.

“Your…sister?” He asks, flipping through the mental profiles of every single senate member he’d mentally catalogued, looking for any thread that could tie one of them to the man standing in front of him—he’d ignored so many people during those two days in the Senate—

“You arrived on her ship,” Skywalker says, brow furrowing just a bit. “I don’t mean to offend, but I doubt even you could get access to that ship if she didn’t just, you know, hand it to you.”

 _Organa._ Then, with mounting horror— _give Luke a kiss from me!_ —she couldn’t possibly have meant—if Din’s face gets any hotter, health warning lights are going to go off in his HUD—

“Oh—okay, um, wow—” Skywalker actually takes a small step back, the tint of his own face darkening in a blush, and Grogu bursts out giggling. “What did you _do?_ ”

 _A lot of things,_ Din thinks, and sees in his mind’s eye: brandishing the Darksaber at the gates, pleading for a chance to see his kid, blatantly ignoring any and all dignitaries who approached him during the senate convention, striking beskar-against-beskar to demand the senate floor and a vote—

“What kind of relationship do you have with your sister?” Paz asks, flat and shameless because he is a terrible, terrible person who missed every single sense-and-self-preservation gene and just got extra muscles instead. “She sent you a kiss.”

“ _I am so sorry,_ ” Skywalker groans, hands over his face as he appears to seek complete unity with the mud. “She likes you, or you wouldn’t have even _looked_ at her ship, but she also took out some petty revenge—don’t worry, totally harmless, just— _the most embarrassing inside joke of all time, Leia, aghh—_ ”

The kid leans way back in the crook of Din’s arm, almost hanging upside down to really take in his clearly humiliated teacher, giggling gleefully. Din tries to shush him, because kriff if he knows what else to do.

“Let’s get you those drinks,” Skywalker sighs, and turns to lead the way to the hut, shoulders slumped in defeat.

Din has no idea what’s going on. But he’s glad they’re moving on to whatever comes next—anything is good with him, so long as he gets to keep his little one tucked against him, giggling and glowing.


End file.
